Watchdog Report: Is your school free of radon?

Only a test can find it, yet schools go untested

Mar. 29, 2014

Radon, a naturally occurring gas that has been linked to lung cancer, is more prevalent in the Southern Tier than in other parts of New York State. State records show some schools in the region have not been tested for the presence of radon. / New York State Department of Health

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Findings

• Second only to smoking, exposure to radon – which occurs naturally – is a leading cause of lung cancer. Although radon tests before selling a home are routine, school testing is not required in New York. • Records indicate more than 1,800 school buildings in New York State have not been tested for the presence of radon, despite a recommendation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to test all schools. • More than 400 untested school buildings are in 34 New York counties designated by the EPA as having a high potential for elevated indoor radon levels. • Unlike some high-radon states – including Virginia and Minnesota – New York does not require school testing. Proposed legislation mandating tests has stalled for years in the state Senate and Assembly. • Anyone applying to open a day care center in high-radon areas of New York is required to prove that they’ve tested for radon, but applicants are exempt from that rule if the day care center is in a public school building.

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Radon, an invisible killer, has gone undetected in more than half of New York’s school buildings because testing for the naturally occurring gas is not required.

A analysis by Central New York Media Group of the most recent school building condition reports at the state Education Department found the reports indicate that 1,832 school buildings have not been tested for radon.

More than 400 of those buildings are in 34 counties designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as having high potential for elevated indoor radon levels, according to the newspaper’s analysis of the condition reports for 3,136 public school buildings outside of New York City.

The presence of untested school buildings in potentially high-radon areas runs counter to long-standing advice of public health experts and the EPA.

“Definitely, schools should be tested,” said William Angell, a University of Minnesota professor who chairs the World Health Organization’s Radon Prevention and Mitigation Working Group. “For more than 20 years, there has been a clear recommendation for schools to test for radon.”

Radon is the nation’s second-leading cause of lung cancer deaths after smoking. The gas is odorless, tasteless and invisible – it can be detected only by testing.

Unlike other states with high-radon areas, New York laws and regulations do not require testing in schools.

Under New York’s education regulations, the only responsibility school districts have is “to be aware of the geological potential for high levels of radon and to test and mitigate as appropriate.”

In the absence of a legal requirement, many school districts — even in EPA-designated high-potential radon areas like the Southern Tier — are not taking responsibility for testing, according to the reports filed with the state.

Legislation that would require radon testing in all public and private schools in New York has stalled for years.

State Senator Kevin Parker, D-Brooklyn, who is sponsoring the legislation, said radon in schools is a “silent killer” that often is overlooked by lawmakers and members of the public.

“This is a problem in many people’s households, but particularly in schools, where we very rarely test for it,” he said. “Because so many of our school buildings are old, we need to start paying attention to them.”

Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, D-Manhattan, the sponsor in the lower chamber, said parents should have information about radon in the buildings they send their children to every day.

“It seems to me that if we’re requiring our children to go into school buildings, we ought to know whether or not that’s (present) in those schools,” he said. “And if it is, we need to get it remediated.”

In the school districts where testing has been conducted, state records show 480 mitigation systems have been installed to vent the gas away from students.

Testing varies

Radon is a naturally occurring gas found in the soil, continuously produced by uranium-bearing rocks as the uranium decays. The gas can enter a structure through cracks and openings.

In a 1994 report on radon in schools, EPA said the gas is responsible for 7,000 to 30,000 lung cancer deaths each year and recommended that all schools in the nation be tested for radon.

While radon is present everywhere at some level, EPA recommends taking action to mitigate radon in structures where it is found above the federal “action level” of 4 picocuries per liter.

According to the 1994 EPA report, a survey in 1990 found almost one in every five school buildings in the United States had at least one room with radon above that level.

“Testing for radon is straightforward and radon problems can be corrected,” the EPA report states, “but the motivation to act must come from our ability to think about the health risks.”

Yet in New York, state records show the loosely-worded regulations have left a patchwork of policies across different school districts.

A mitigation system is in place to vent radon away from students at Union-Endicott Central School District’s George F. Johnson Elementary School in Broome County.

But less than a mile away is Maine-Endwell Central School District’s high school. Along with the district’s other buildings, the high school has never been tested for radon.

M-E spokeswoman Brenda Potsko said the district inquired about the cost of the testing this year, and found it would cost about $10,000.

“The district has not conducted radon testing,” she said. “However, at this time the testing isn’t required by the State Education Department.”

The average radon level in basements in Broome County is 5.92 picocuries per liter, according to state Department of Health records.

Radon testing has been conducted in most of the region’s large, urban districts. All schools in the Elmira and Ithaca city school districts have been tested.

In the Binghamton City School District, records show most buildings have been tested but the Christopher Columbus School has not been.

“I think that it just went off the radar because it’s not a requirement and it has not been done,” said Binghamton Assistant Superintendent Karry Mullins. She said district officials are now considering testing the building for radon.

Asked for an explanation of why some schools are not tested, many school officials cited the lack of any binding state law or policy.

Windsor Central School District Superintendent Jason Andrews said the district tested only the north wing of Windsor Central High School when renovations were under way in 2001. The rest of the building or other facilities have not been tested.

“As I understand it, schools can elect to do radon testing,” he said. “That’s typically done when they’re doing new construction projects or particularly major renovations.”

In Cortland County, the county with the state’s highest radon levels, Marathon Central School District Superintendent Rebecca Stone said the district contracts with the local Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, to perform all of its testing.

State records show that Marathon’s elementary and high schools have not been tested for the presence of radon.

“We have a safety officer that comes in and inspects our buildings,” Stone said. “If there’s any required testing, he is the one that sets up the testing.”

The Trumansburg Central School District has not tested its high school or middle school for radon, records show. Average basement radon levels in Tompkins County are 5.01 picocuries per liter.

Trumansburg Superintendent of Buildings & Grounds Michael Babcock said only the district’s elementary school was tested in 1992 through a federal grant.

He said state officials should consider the mandates that school districts already face if they decide to require testing.

“There’s only so many people to do the work at hand,” he said, “and schools right now are in the business of cutting staff, not adding staff.”

When told that state records indicated schools have not been tested, officials in some school districts said it would be sensible to check radon levels.

Although Steuben County has some of the state’s highest radon levels, records show neither Valley Elementary School nor Addison High School or have been tested in Addison Central School District.

Superintendent Joseph DioGuardi said it would be worthwhile for the district to test its schools.

“Even though it’s not (a requirement), I think we should do it anyway,” he said. “Absolutely, we should do it. I don’t think we need to wait for a requirement.”

Science project surprise

In Chemung County, which has the second-highest average indoor radon level for counties in New York, records show all school buildings have been tested for radon.

But the radon testing programs in Elmira-area schools grow more from a chance discovery than any policies or regulations.

During a sixth-grade lesson on soil, air and water quality at Pine City Elementary in 2001, students conducted radon tests in various areas of the building.

Their tests showed radon was present at more than 11 times the level considered potentially harmful by the EPA.

“We didn’t know how it was messed up,” 11-year-old student Elizabeth Buck told the Star-Gazette at the time. “They just said professionals had to come in.”

Following the testing conducted by the schoolchildren, the Elmira City School District hired a firm to conduct tests in 40 areas throughout the district’s school buildings.

The tests led to new school district policies requiring ventilation and testing to mitigate the radon problem.

After the Pine City Elementary incident, nearby districts followed and implemented testing problems of their own, said Mike Coghlan, facilities director for Horseheads Central School District.

“That prompted every (school) board and everybody to (test for radon),” he said. “We tested everything at that time.”

Cost of testing

Radon testing and mitigation for larger buildings, like schools, is greater than the cost of testing in homes.

A home radon test kit can be purchased for between $20 and $30 and a professional test for an average home would typically cost about $125, said Richard Tarnowski, member and director of environmental services at Binghamton-based Keystone Environmental Services.

Mitigating radon in a home typically involves cutting a hole in the floor slab and running a pipe from the hole to outside the structure, and costs about $1,000 or less. If the pipe itself is not sufficient to vent the radon, a vent fan can be installed to further reduce the levels.

Testing for a building of about 60,000 square feet — a typical footprint for a school — would require the placement of about 20 air monitor canisters and might cost between $1,400 and $1,600, said George Schambach, a licensed home inspector with radon certification at Professional Home Inspection, based in Binghamton.

The expense to mitigate a 60,000 square-foot building could be $35,000 to $60,000, he said.

But according to some, the societal cost of not testing is even greater.

William Field, a professor at the University of Iowa’s School of Public Health who studies the health effects of radon, said the future medical cost of even one lung cancer diagnosis related to school exposure “would likely exceed the cost of any mitigation.”

“In many cases,” he said, “school radon problems can be fixed by simply changing air exchange rates within a building at minimal cost.”

Strict rules elsewhere

In other states, school officials leave less to chance.

Colorado and Virginia require all schools to be tested for radon and for the results to be publicly disclosed. Other states — including Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island — have testing regulations that just apply to school buildings within the EPA’s designated high-potential areas.

Even within New York, some state agencies have regulations meant to mitigate the risk of radon exposure.

Anyone applying for a license to open a day care center in a high-radon area of New York is required by the state Office of Children and Family Services to show they have tested for radon. The applicant is exempt from that rule, however, if the proposed day care center is located in a public school building.

“I might want a regulation that is a little more prescriptive on requiring testing,” said Dr. Jerome Paulson, Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment in Washington, D.C.

Paulson questioned the part of New York’s regulation that allows school districts to make testing decisions “as appropriate.”

“How does the phrase ‘as appropriate’ get interpreted?” he said. “If they are aware of the high rate on potential but decide, for whatever reason, in their best judgment they don’t need to test, I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Other experts, including Field, of the University of Iowa, were more direct about the need to test.

“What are we teaching our students,” Field said, “when we tell them that their lives are not worth the cost it takes to test or mitigate a school for radon?”

Angell, of the University of Minnesota and the World Health Organization, said the 1994 EPA recommendation that all of the nation’s schools be tested for radon should be followed.

Because radon exposure is cumulative, he said, the health effects of radon on school children will stay with them for life.

“After 20 years, it’s time for buildings that haven’t been tested...to be tested,” said Angell. “And legislation that encourages that, or requires that, is, in my opinion, very important.”

Parker, who has sponsored legislation in the state Senate, said there hasn’t yet been a mass appeal for radon testing in schools because so few are aware of the issue.

And at a time when school districts face many mandates with less and less funding, he said, state officials will need to figure out a funding mechanism to limit the burden on school districts.

But Parker said he has an answer for those who ask about the cost of a testing requirement.